1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of vehicle surveillance systems, and more particularly, to data collected using vehicle surveillance systems and the processing of such data.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Various systems for collecting and using vehicle data are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. RE38,626 entitled “Parking Regulation Enforcement System” discloses a system for scanning vehicle license plates and various embodiments for using the scanned data in applications such as parking enforcement and locating lost vehicles. Additionally, the patent suggests the comparison of license plate data to various databases, such as stolen vehicle, outstanding warrant or suspended license databases. Comparisons of license plate data to various other databases likewise have been suggested, such as databases of tax liens and outstanding parking tickets.
Another example of a prior system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,809,161 to Auty. The Auty patent scans license plates at various points along a route and uses the license plate data along with time data and distance data to calculate average speeds as a means for enforcing speed limits. The Auty patent suggests other uses of the collected data such as comparing scanned license plate data with databases of stolen vehicles.
Another example is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,603,390 to Mehdipour, which discloses a system for monitoring and charging fees in connection with one or more parking lots.
Such prior systems have been effective to varying degrees for various purposes. Such systems, however, lack comprehensive storage of collected data over an extended period of time and the analysis of such data.